Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud

EuroPol, the EU law enforcement organization, reports that carbon trading is up to 90% fraudulent:

The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.

Hat tip: Instapundit and Volokh Conspiracy

EuroPol provides a helpful diagram (PDF) explaining how "carbon credit carousel fraud" works (click image to enlarge):
Some Americans may be jealous of these rich opportunities that the EU offers to criminals. Do not despair, however, because the Democrats hope to start a similar cap-and-trade scheme here in the US.

Scientists v. UN

141 scientists wrote a letter to the UN yesterday challenging the UN's global warming hysteria.

Hat tip: Transterrestrial Musings.

Obama as a master communicator

There are many times when Pres. Obama's thoughts seem muddled and incoherent (e.g. is he for or against huge deficits?). At other times, his communications can be crystal clear as here when he he flips the bird to Hillary:
The crowd reaction leaves no doubt that they understand what he did.

Watch here as he flips the bird to a Mayor who supported Hillary:

Here he gives the finger to John McCain:

Hat tip: GatewayPundit and RightWingNews.

In a different form of hate speech, Sen. Reid, on Monday, compared Republicans to the pre-civil-war defenders of slavery. Apparently, he is unaware which party it was that actually supported slavery.

Obama disses Norway

The (UK) Guardian reports that Norwegians are "incensed" over Pres. Obama's decision to skip events normally associated with receiving a Nobel prize:

Barack Obama's trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.

Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.

The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children's event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.

He has also turned down a lunch invitation from the King of Norway.

The Guardian also reports that there will be protests against Obama's decision to wait 18 months before he surrenders Afghanistan to Al Qaeda and the Taliban :

Peace activists opposed to the Afghanistan war are planning a 5,000-strong protest in Oslo.

You can't please everyone.

PREVIOUSLY, on the general subject of Obama's foreign policy:
"Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them,"
Iran accepts Obama's surrender
Obama angers Iran
Obama gets an education
Krauthammer on a roll
Obama's go-it-alone foreign policy: Russian edition
Obama alienates Germany
Obama's charm offensive not working
Obama snubs Brazil
Obama insults Britain
On Iran's nuclear program, Obama abandons cooperation with Europe
Obama antagonizes India

GOP: a dead brand

Rasmussen asked likely voters to "assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party" and them asked them who they would vote for. Despite 6 months of the MSM's obscene comments and ridicule, the Tea Party outpolled the GOP:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

Conservatives should be the Republican party base but little more than half of conservatives consider themselves Republicans and those who vote Republican overwhelmingly think their leaders are "out of touch":

Data from the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that just 55% of conservatives nationwide consider themselves Republicans. Recent polling shows that 73% of Republican voters believe their leaders in Washington are out of touch with the party base.

The Republicans in Washington need to hold a strategy session.

Hat tip: B. Daniel Blatt

Lt. Col. Allen West tells it like it is

Lt. Col. Allen West is running against incumbent rep. Ron Klein (D-FL) in Florida's 22nd district. Watch him speak:

West previously made news for his controversial, among liberals anyway, but apparently successful anti-terror efforts in Iraq. CNN reported on the controversial part which was West's interrogation of a suspected terror-sympathizer:

West said the policeman, Yahya Jhrodi Hamoody, was not cooperating with interrogators, .... [West took] the suspect outside, put him on the ground near a weapons clearing barrel and fired his 9 mm pistol into the barrel.

Apparently not knowing where West's gun was aimed, Hamoody cracked and gave information about the planned ambush on West's convoy, thwarting the attack.

West said there were no further ambushes on U.S. forces in Taji until he was relieved of his leadership post on October 4. ....

Asked if he would have act differently if under similar circumstances again, West testified, "If it's about the lives of my soldiers at stake, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can."

If I were under his command, he would have my loyalty.

You can read more about this decorated veteran here.

Obamacare may raise insurance costs by 54%

The Wall Street Journal writes:

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has found that premiums in the individual market will rise on average by 54% over the status quo, which translates into an extra $3,341 a year for families and $1,576 for singles. The White House denounced the report as a "sham" before it was even released, which shows how seriously it takes such concerns. ....

Blue Cross found costs will rise if Democrats force insurers to cover anyone who applies and then limit how much insurers are allowed to charge based on age or health condition. Economists call this adverse selection; people will wait until they're sick to buy coverage, and the Democratic rules make it perfectly rational for them to do so.

The Wall Street Journal quotes from a White House blog to illustrate just how clueless the Obama administration is about the relevant economics:

"And you can bet as we continue to make progress," communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog, "the insurance industry will continue to try and distract and misinform because they know their very profitable status quo is in grave danger." He must be referring to the industry's overall profit margin of 2.2% in 2008. [Emph. added]

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:

Harvard's Dean of Medicine opposes Obamacare
Rahm Emanuel explains that they are not even trying have Obamacare make sense
Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage
To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in
Polls say majority of voters oppose Obamacare

Obama conquers the fog of war

Often, if you wage a war, you don't know who is going to win. By providing a surrender date in advance, has Pres. Obama removed all the mystery?

Chip Bok illustrates how Obama's plan works: Is this a plan that our soldiers should be willing to die for?

BoxerGate

Ma'am Sen. Boxer was for climate whistleblowers before she was against them.

Her confusion on Afghanistan, Obamacare, and other issues is discussed by Matt Lewis at Townhall.

Obama hears us!

From DayByDay. Hat tip: Don Surber.

Unbiased news report of the day

Often news reporters are highly skillful at being bias, being able to twist so subtly to fit their narrative (example: BBC). At other times, news bias is just silly as in this headline from a local CBS news channel:
The headline reads "Popular NY Dem Suozzi concedes defeat" and refers to Democrat Tom Suozzi's loss to Republican Edward Mangano for the county executive position in Nassau County on NY's Long Island.

If Democrat Suozzi were actually the "popular" candidate in the race, don't you think he would have won the election?

Hat tip: James Taranto.

Obama's speech

Pres. Obama has called on our troops to fight and die in Afghanistan for 18 months after which he may decide to surrender, depending on the "conditions on the ground."  Is that the kind of leadership that you would find inspiring?

One of the more bizarre passages in the speech was:

On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. ....  They took the lives of innocent men, women, and children without regard to their faith or race or station. [Emph. added]

Why is that important to Obama?  Is he trying to offer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a possible legal defense against charges that 9-11 was a hate-crime?

BookwormRoom has more on last night's speech.  Still more from Michelle Malkin.

Related: A 95-year Navy vet asks Obama to "shape-up."

The BBC is a master of the art of propaganda

In an article on Phil Jones resignation, the BBC writes about the controversial e-mails:

'Out of context'

At the time that the theft of the data was revealed climate sceptics picked up on the word "trick" in one e-mail from 1999 and talk of "hiding the decline".

Professor Jones said the e-mail was genuine but taken "completely out of context".

He released a copy of the actual e-email which reads: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Professor Jones said: "The first thing to point out is that this refers to one diagram - not a scientific paper.

"The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."

The first thing to note is that, out of all the e-mails, the BBC has picked a single word, "trick," to discuss. They have done this because it is the easiest for Jones to defend. Then they proceed to let Jones offer his defense without a single interruption. Jones explains, correctly, that, in science, a "trick" is often a good thing. The professional trained journalists at the BBC fail to ask the obvious question: what was "the decline" that he was hiding and why? Also, they let him get away with a howler:

Professor Jones said: "The first thing to point out is that this refers to one diagram - not a scientific paper.

That "one diagram" was not just any diagram. It was the centerpiece of global warmist propaganda. It, for example, appeared on the cover of the World Meteorological Organization's report (PDF): "WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999."

You can find excellent analyses  of the ClimateGate e-mails that put the e-mails in much needed context but you won't find those analyses in the legacy media.  You will find them on the web if, for example, you click here, here, here, here, or here.

Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review

The AP reports:

Britain's University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

Among the released e-mails was one from Jones asking a colleague to "delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re [the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report]." To do an effective investigation, the university would have to have seized the computers he used (at least the ones owned and controlled by the university) before Jones had the chance to delete any more data or correspondence. I doubt that they have done that: such a seizure would be ungentlemanly. Consequently, their university investigation is unlikely to uncover anything that Jones doesn't want them to find.

Rep. Hinchey: Bush 'intentionally let bin Laden get away'

On MSNBC, Rep. Hinchey (D-NY) says the Bush administration "intentionally let bin Laden get away.... That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well if they would capture Al Qaeda there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq":
The MSNBC host challenges Rep. Hinchey's theory. I wonder if that will cause a backlash by the netroots against the network.

Rep. Hinchey was one of the 11 co-sponsors of the Kucinich resolution to impeach Pres. Geo. W. Bush.

Huckabee on the left, II

Maurice Clemmons, currently sought in the execution-style murders of four police officers, would still have been in prison on a 108-year sentence except that Gov. Huckabee (R-AK) commuted his sentence. This was one of several controversial pardons by the former governor.

Huckabee's policies as governor were often more left than right. (He has sometimes been called a pro-life liberal.) I had previously discussed his foreign policy ideas which were based on inappropriate childhood analogies, something that is common on the left.

I'd buy this guy a tank of gas!

From one of those circulating e-mails:

Hat tip: Rob.

Obama has no trouble making decisions, except when they're hard

James Taranto provides the details.

"Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them,"

So chanted Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators last Nov. 4 on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy. Dr. Foud Ajami, noted author and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, says that the pro-democracy side was disappointed with Obama's answer:

By not responding to these cries and continuing to "engage" Tehran's murderous regime, his choice was made clear.

Dr. Ajami also reports that reality has caused Pres. Obama to back down from his campaign pledge to solve the Kashmir problem:

[Obama] was quick to assert, in the course of his exuberant campaign for president last year, that his diplomacy in South Asia would start with the standoff in Kashmir. In truth India had no interest in an international adjudication of Kashmir. What was settled during the partition in 1947 was there to stay. In recent days, Mr. Obama walked away from earlier ambitions. "Obviously, there are historic conflicts between India and Pakistan," he said. "It's not the place of the United States to try to, from the outside, resolve those conflicts."

In another disappointment, Obama's apology tour to the middle east has failed to make friends:

It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America's decline in the eyes of foreign nations. Foreigners were saying what the liberals wanted said.

Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn't seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that's reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year.

Dr. Ajami explains why a policy of apologies fails to earn respect:

Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others.

The crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. "My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger," goes one of the Arab world's most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion. [Emph. added]

Jimmy Carter similarly committed a "great moral lapse" when he abandoned the Shah of Iran, an American ally, in favor of Ayatollah Khomeini ("the saint") and it did not earn him Khomeini's respect.

It is going to be a long four years.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Obama's Iran policy:
Iran accepts Obama's surrender
Obama angers Iran

PREVIOUSLY, on the general subject of Obama's foreign policy:
Obama gets an education
Krauthammer on a roll
Obama's go-it-alone foreign policy: Russian edition
Obama alienates Germany
Obama's charm offensive not working
Obama snubs Brazil
Obama insults Britain
On Iran's nuclear program, Obama abandons cooperation with Europe
Obama antagonizes India

Penn State to investigate its global warmist Mann, or not

Dr. Michael Mann became famous as the creator of the "hockey-stick" temperature plot that was highlighted by the UN IPCC in an attempt to prove global warming. In the wake of the release of the East Anglia e-mails (AKA ClimateGate or WarmerGate), the National Post reports that Penn State will investigate Mann:

Penn State University has announced that it has begun an investigation of the work of Michael Mann, the director of its Earth System Science Center, following revelations contained in the Climategate documents that have emerged from East Anglia University in the UK.

How far will this investigation go? To answer, let's consider the last time that Mann got himself in trouble. I mentioned above that he created the famous "hockey-stick" temperature plot in 1999. In 2004, it was exposed that Mann's analysis was riddled with mathematical errors. As a consequence, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the subject of the Earth's temperatures over the past 2,000 years. While the NAS report (PDF) covered a lot of territory, I want to highlight just one illustrative point. The hockey stick plot relied, in part, on temperatures inferred from tree rings, a speciality of another scientist made famous by ClimateGate: Dr. Keith Briffa of the University of East Anglia. There are two issues with tree rings: (a) do they really reflect temperature, as opposed to, say, rainfall, and (b) have we examined tree rings on enough trees that it is a statistically significant reflection of global temperature. Here is how the National Acedemies summarized their answer to the second question:

To prevent the risk that a single tree ring chronology could reflect the influence of localized nonclimatic influences (Fritts 1976, Trotter et al. 2002), dendroclimatic reconstructions often rely on networks of site chronologies. Regional tree ring networks typically have strong intersite correlations (e.g., Hughes et al. 1984, Figure 2), and continental-to-hemispheric-scale networks are able to reproduce synoptic-scale climatological patterns (Fritts 1991, Briffa et al. 2002).

In other words, they accepted Briffa's word that he had included enough trees. However, subesequent research showed that (1) the number of trees used by Briffa was indeed very small, and (2) Briffa's entire "global warming" effect is the result of the inclusion of a single tree, designated YAD061.

Why didn't the NAS investigation undercover such a huge flaw? There are two reasons: (i) it would have been an ungentlemanly insult to ask a colleague to produce his raw data and code, and (ii) even if they did ask, it is likely that no one on the NAS committee had the either the time or the interest to pursue it to the level required to expose the fraud/error. So it will likely be with the Penn State investigation of Mann: it will likely be gentlemanly and superficial and nothing interesting will be found.

The NAS was aware of the problem of irreproducible climate results and did, in their gentlemanly way, ask that data and code be released:

Peers should have access to the information needed to reproduce published results, so that increased confidence in the outcome of the study can be generated inside and outside the scientific community. Other committees and organizations have produced an extensive body of literature on the importance of open access to scientific data and on the related guidelines for data archiving and data access (e.g., NRC 1995). Paleoclimate research would benefit if individual researchers, professional societies, journal editors, and funding agencies continued to improve their efforts to ensure that these existing open-access practices are followed.

Seemingly because they were aware that their data did not support their conclusion, the Mann, Briffa, and other global warmists refused to follow the NAS suggestion, appearing going so far as to stonewall legal freedom-of-information act requests. Only because of ClimateGate has the University of East Anglia reversed course and offered to do as the NAS asked (but only after claiming to have "lost" key data).

More suppression of dissent

Two unrelated items illustrate how the left prefers to deal with dissent:

1. Criticism of Islam is not allowed at Princeton or Columbia. As Human Events writes:

   Nonie Darwish, the executive director of Former Muslims United and author of Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, was scheduled to speak at Columbia and Princeton last week, but both events were canceled under pressure from Muslim groups on campus.
   
   Darwish, a soft-spoken ex-Muslim and daughter of an Islamic martyr, is a champion of the rights of women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, and leader of the group Arabs for Israel. She had been planning to speak on “Sharia Law and Perspectives on Israel.” She is one of the few courageous voices who speak out against Islamic anti-Semitism and the oppression of women under Sharia.

   Prior to 9-11, the politically correct opinion would have been that women's rights were more important than religious sensibilities. Now, that has reversed, provided that the religion is Islam.
   


2. Global warmists claim to represent the consensus despite the thousands on scientist who are on record as disagreeing with them. In "Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate," Iain Murray reviews the e-mails surrounding the dismissal of a journal editor for disagreeing with the politically-connected global warmists:

   In 2005, Michael Mann said that there was a “fundamental problem w/ GRL now,” referring to the journal Geophysical Research Letters published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), because “they have published far too many deeply flawed contrarian papers in the past year or so” and “it is probably best to do an end run around GRL now where possible.” Tom Wigley responded that “we could go through official AGU channels to get him [the editor of GRL] ousted” (1106322460). A few months later, the editor of GRL having left his post, Mann comments, “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/ new editorial leadership there” (1132094873).

PREVIOUSLY on the issues of dissent and free speech:
Obama sells out free speech
Physicians' group to sue Obama administration over suppression of dissent
Canada's liberals oppose free speech
Free speech and its enemies
University upset at free speech
The Right of Free Speech, Selectively Applied
Tolerating free speech, IV
Tolerating free speech, III
More on tolerating free speech
Those who cannot tolerate free speech

A refusal to think

The Democrats position on treating international terrorism as if it were an issue for domestic criminal courts is, to those who think about the issue, clearly irrational. Democrats avoid that problem by choosing not to think as illustrated here by Speaker Pelosi at a press conference last week:
Hat tip: GatewayPundit.

XNWTRTU3H2FP UQQFJ9CC69YG

Obama gets an education

While it is too soon to be sure, it appears that Pres. Obama may be learning from experience. At Der Speigel, Gabor Steingart writes of Obama's failures and the signs that he may be learning from them:

Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever. There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.

The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences. ....

Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion." Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed.

Now, for the signs that Obama may be learning, he cites changes in Obama policy toward Iran and Korea:

An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful. While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.

Mr. Steingart may be over-optimistic. it seems unlikely that Pres. Obama could lose his naivety in only ten months while ex-Pres. Carter has not lost his in three decades. Separately, there are no signs that Obama is moderating his even more disastrous domestic agenda. For example, Obama is showing no signs of a course correction on his medical takeover despite it having reached a new low in popularity with Rasmussen finding that voters oppose it by 56% to 38%. Obama campaigned as the candidate of hope and, so it is: all we can do is hope that he is learning.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden.

Soviet emigre fears for our future

My friends who believe in Obamacare tend not to have experienced government-run medicine or maybe they have a story about someone having been in a British hospital once and having survived. At Tea Parties, there are often many Soviet emigres who react with horror to the idea that any successful country, such as the US, would want to go down that path voluntarily. At the Tea Party Patriots Farmer Relief & Freedom Relay in San Jose Saturday, Elena from the Ukraine was one such emigre:

Do we, in the US, want to be, seventy years from now, where the USSR is today? Why are we even thinking about going in that direction:
The rest of my report and photos of this Tea Party are here.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of local protests and tea parties:
Tea Party breaks out in Palo Alto (Nov. 21)
To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in (Nov. 15)
A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco (Oct. 15)
Videos of the October 15 San Francisco Tea Party
San Franciscans speak to Nancy Pelosi (Aug. 14)
The San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party Protest in Pictures (Apr. 15)
Rep. Eshoo's health care town hall (Sep. 2)
Rep. Speier's town hall meeting (Aug. 23)
Million man Tea party

Farmers protest in San Jose

California farmers know the way to San Jose and, on Saturday, many met there to protest at a Tea Party Patriots Farmer Relief & Freedom Relay:California's lush central valley has been turned into a dust bowl by environmentalists who insist that a 2" smelt fish is more important than the farmers or the food that produce which feeds the rest of us. Farmers want their water turned back on:
Many farmers made the connection between this regulatory overreach and the rest of the Obama agenda:
The subject of Obamacare also came up at this rally. This man makes the point that there are only two certainties in Obamacare: death and taxes.
This woman had a sign with a creative analogy. Democrats are attracted to the promise of "free" health care in the same way that mice are attracted to the free cheese when they approach a mouse trap:
Pres. Obama has pursued many "urgent" action items. The stimulus bill was so important that it had to be passed before any could read it. The Senate just voted to proceed on Reid's version of Obamacare without enough time to read the bill. Yet, while soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, Obama cannot be bothered to decide on a policy. It makes me furious and, apparently, I'm not the only one:

Lastly, the LaRouche Democrats showed up: you can recognize them by the Obama-with-Hitler-mustache posters:

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of local protests and tea parties:
Tea Party breaks out in Palo Alto (Nov. 21)
To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in (Nov. 15)
A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco (Oct. 15)
Videos of the October 15 San Francisco Tea Party
San Franciscans speak to Nancy Pelosi (Aug. 14)
The San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party Protest in Pictures (Apr. 15)
Rep. Eshoo's health care town hall (Sep. 2)
Rep. Speier's town hall meeting (Aug. 23)
Million man Tea party

Tea Party breaks out in Palo Alto; UPDATE: police called in

Obama may have beaten McCain by by 41% in Palo Alto, California, but that didn't stop a Tea Party from breaking out there today. The occasion was the Stanford -Berkeley game, a major local event attracting tens of thousands of alumni and football fans to the Stanford University stadium here in Palo Alto. Outside the stadium, they were greeted by a tea party:

Some of the liberals took offense, claiming for example that death panels were "lies," but things generally remained civil. The one exception was when a mild-mannered but hungry protester went to a nearby restaurant for sustenance. He was refused service asked to leave because he had with him an anti-Obamacare sign.

This event was organized by the Silicon Valley 9-12 Project.

MORE: Our protester explains that a security guard had noticed him while he was walking through the shopping center in search of food. When he sat down, it was too much and the guard had to call for backup:

"I put my sign down on an outside table and ordered my meal. The female guard looked at my sign and got on her radio to call for security-guard backup."

It was after he left the restaurant and sat on a low retaining wall outside to enjoy his repast that two security guards confronted him, demanding that he leave. As he was comfortable where he was and also aware of his rights, he declined. Because a single individual with an anti-Obamacare sign was too much for these two security guards, they called the police. One officer came to the scene and then another. The second officer told our intrepid protester that he would have to leave. Still aware that, under California law, a shopping arcade is "quasi-public property" and that he had a right to sit there with sign and taco, he bravely refused. The two officers then conferred and, with the help of an iPhone, examined the precedents under CA case law (Yes, Palo Alto is a university town). They determined that the controlling legal authority was the Pruneyard Decision which gave our hero the right to finish his lunch where he was, with his sign, and in peace. He enjoyed the taco.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of local protests and tea parties:
To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in (Nov. 15)
A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco (Oct. 15)
Videos of the October 15 San Francisco Tea Party
San Franciscans speak to Nancy Pelosi (Aug. 14)
The San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party Protest in Pictures (Apr. 15)
Rep. Eshoo's health care town hall (Sep. 2)
Rep. Speier's town hall meeting (Aug. 23)
Million man Tea party

The KSM trial, illustrated

Chip Bok explores the possibilities:
Attorney General Holder's defense of using civilian trials, along with reaction to it, was discussed here. A CNN poll showed that even Democrats oppose the use of civilian trials for 9-11 suspects, as was discussed here.

Harvard's Dean of Medicine opposes Obamacare

Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, an endocrinologist and Dean of the Harvard Medical School, explains how much damage he thinks Obamacare will do to our health system:

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. ....

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:
Rahm Emanuel explains that they are not even trying have Obamacare make sense
Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage
Polls say majority of voters oppose Obamacare

Another Obama Treasury Dept. tax cheat

"Obama's nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, Lael Brainard, is the fifth presidential nominee to reveal tax issues during the congressional vetting process."

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

PREVIOUSLY:
Oakland Mayor and former Congressman Ron Dellums failed to pay taxes
Sen. Daschle caught not paying taxes
Rep. Charlie Rangel and unpaid taxes
57% of those who describe themselves as "very liberal" think it OK to cheat on taxes.
Taxes, Sen. Al Franken, Sen. Paul Wellstone, and Clinton's AG nominees
The rules apply only to other people

Taxing our way to health care

Americans for Tax Reform has a list of tax increases in the Senate Democrat health bill.  The Democrats plan to tax individuals, employers, over-the-counter medicines, HSA accounts, drug manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, and cosmetic surgery.

Key witness to torture of Iranian democracy protesters dies under mysterious circumstances

AP reports:

An Iranian doctor who went public with reports of tortured protesters he treated at Tehran's most feared detention facility dies, amid conflicting reports of a heart attack, a car accident or suicide — raising opposition accusations that the 26-year-old was killed.

According to the New York Times, it is said that the 26-year old Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani was the "only independent witness to be able to corroborate the charges of torture." (When Iran tortures, it is real torture, not the panties-on-the-head torture or she-touched-my-thigh torture that excites American liberals.)

Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs.